Of Xrays and Poltergeists
by Wisdom of Insanity
Summary: Things are about to get animated at the Boarding House as two new ladies join the ranks of our favorite bad boys… But why come to them instead of going to the X-Geeks? PG-13 for a naughty word or two...


Of X-rays and Poltergeists

"Let's just say I'm praying my damnest that it all goes smoothly…"  Maybe coming to Bayville hadn't been such a great idea after all.  They could've worked it out, back home.  In some way… that would've probably brought them both to a juvenile detention facility.  Yeah right, work it out.  Dammit Ray!  You know better than anyone else how the fucking system works.  People don't care, people don't listen.  'Put Mutants behind bars!' 'Down with the Mutants!' As long as they have somebody to blame, someone to put away, they are sure the problem will be solved.  The bad guys are taken care of, so now they can carry on their egoistical, hypocrite and self absorbed little shitty lives, not caring about anything else.

'Chill Ray, chill…' a little voice in her head suddenly said. 'No need to get all worked up about that stuff now.  You know how important this is, if you fail, you'll both have no where else to go…'  Letting out a ragged sigh, the neon clad girl looked over her shoulder at her best friend and tried to put on a reassuring smile.  "I'm sure they'll be ok with it."  Noticing the look of fear plainly written across the smaller girl's face she continued, trying her best to lift up both their spirits: "Besides, I've got the bribe right here!"  A small giggle and a smile as a reward, Ray turned back towards the front door of the Bayville Boarding house, a determined look on her face.  "Let's do this thing!"

***

"Freddy, give it back, yo!  It's my sandwich!"

"But I'm hungry!"  Fred whined as he gave Todd his best puppy dog look "There's almost nothing left to eat and we can't go grocery shopping 'till Lance gets his pay!"

"Which happens to be in exactly four days and I'M the one who didn't eat yesterday, so I get the last sandwich!"  Todd argued, slightly dreading Fred would realize he only had to swallow the sandwich whole and the smaller mutant wouldn't be able to do a thing to stop him.  He shuddered at the thought of not getting a bite for the next couple of days and because of the gust of cold wind that just flew by.

Why should he be the one to make all the sacrifices?  Getting thrown into lockers for stealing stuff and lifting wallets, getting chased by security when he was caught shoplifting…  It wasn't fair.  Why should his life suck more than the other's?  Okay, so Lance was doing his part working part time, but what were Freddy and Pietro doing to keep them from starving to death?  Or to keep the house from developing it's very own range of bacterial weapons? Todd sighed.  Of one thing he was sure: at the moment, his life sucked.  But now, back to the problem at hand: Blob was still standing between him and the last scrape of food in the house.

"But I'm -" Blob cut short his whining as he suddenly sensed something amiss in his right hand.

"HEY!  Where'd the sandwich go!!?!" Both exclaimed at the same time while staring at Blob's hand, a horrified expression on their faces.  

"Where's what?" Came Pietro's voice from the kitchen door.

"My - " Todd suspended his sentence, his eyes growing wide at the speedster.  Or rather, at the trace of jelly left on his chin.  And then it hit him that he felt wind in the kitchen right before Blob and him noticed the disappearance of the sandwich.  He had thought it came from outside, but a quick look around the room confirmed his suspicion.  All the windows were closed.

Todd's eyes narrowed into slits, his fingers curling to form fist.  "PIETRO!!!! YOU ATE MY SANDWICH!!!!"

"Oh so it was yours?" Pietro said with false innocence. "I was sure it was going to waste…  ARG!!! Toad quit it!!!"

Blob wasted no time copying Toad's example by lunging at Quicksilver and pretty soon the three ended up in a full-throttled wrestle match.

***

Lance ears perked up at the commotion in the kitchen but he dismissed it almost immediately.  It wasn't like wrestle matches over the last sandwich of the month were uncommon.  Speaking of which, he was also hungry… and broke.  He made a sour face.  Things were pretty rough at the moment for them.  They had no money, no food, the water was going to get shut off pretty soon and if they didn't pay the bills, the power would probably be too.  And they had no leader, which should have made them happy – no more training, missions, getting their asses kicked by the X-geeks – but instead, they got a taste of adults responsibilities.  Well, he did.  He was the oldest, he had to look out for them.

Shutting the TV off, Lance sighed and stood up from the couch, ready to make his way to the kitchen to stop the wrestle match.  Responsibilities sucked.  Big time.  He paused into the hall, looking through the door at the three others still tangled together on the floor.  A half-hearted smile made it's way onto his lips.  They looked like a bunch of toddlers duking it out for a G.I. Joe action figure.  

What he would give to just be able to play pretend again.  To not care about anything important – money, bills, school, food… - and go play with them, in a fake wrestling match, because that's really all it was.  Sure, Todd and Blob were pissed at Pietro for eating the last sandwich, but they would never really hurt him.  Save for a couple of bumps and scratches that were pretty inevitable, they'd all walk out of this unharmed.

"Guys." Lance called out.  And got absolutely no response.  Rolling his eyes, he was about to make his way into the kitchen and break them up just as a knock was heard on the front door.

Momentarily forgetting the on-going fighting, Lance went to open the door, praying it wasn't any delegate from school, social services, sanitary inspection or the police.  And he suddenly realized that if it was indeed the social services, a fight in the kitchen probably wouldn't make the best of impressions.  The door could wait.

"Guys, quit it!" Lance ordered as he entered the kitchen.  "Someone's here."

"So?"  Fred said while pinning Pietro to the ground and the speedster yelped.

"Could be social services." Lance said with some urgency as the fight broke up.

"Shit!"  Todd exclaimed. "Well, what do we do?  Mystique ain't here, the house's a mess…"

"Don't panic!"  Avalanche said, taking charge of the situation.  "Pietro, try to clean downstairs as much as you possibly can.  Todd, Fred, you two take upstairs.  Shove everything in the closets if you have to but make it quick.  I'll try to stall them.  We use the plan B: tutor out of town for conference on economics, back in about 2 days. Everybody clear? Okay, let's go!"

"Yeah, sure.  You stall them while we're stuck with the cleaning."  Pietro pointed out.

"This ain't open for discussion Pietro, besides you can clean the place in 5 minutes."

"Four and 15 seconds.  But that's not the point, it's not the time it takes, it's the fact that I'm always the one stuck with the cleaning!"

"Pietro…" Lance began desperately "I swear we'll have a long big discussion on the cleaning issue but right now, PLEASE, just clean the damn place!"

***

"M-maybe t-they're not here?" The small brunette said, nervously playing with her fingers.  This was a bad idea.  They should go back home.  Carrie felt tears stinging her eyes.  Right now, they had no home to go home to.  And it was all her fault they we're stuck coming here.  They had had to run away because of her.  Her and her incontrollable powers.  She even brought  Ray into the mess she was in.  Now they could never go home.  Who would want a mutant freak as their daughter?

"Carrie."  The girl raised her brown eyes from the ground and looked at her best friend with a mixture of uncertainty and sadness.  The orange-y eyes stared back, ablaze with determination.   She wished she could be like Ray.  Ray was strong, the strongest person she'd ever seen.  Ray took crap from no one.  Ray didn't care what other people thought of her. Which was why she was who she was.  

A girl of 5'4, 5'4 and a half if you counted her spiky neon orange hair with yellow ends, wearing neon green running shoes, too large neon blue pants, a neon pink tank top that cut to her midriff, showing her belly button piercing.  Four other piercings adorned her left ear, three were on her right. Discman halfway shoved into the front of her pants, the headphones hooked around her neck along with her 3 necklaces.  Flashing 3 colour nail polish,  a collection of rings on her fingers, a various assortment of bracelets on her right wrist, her eternal digital Timex watch on her left and yellow sunglasses on top of her head.  No make up, unless she felt like it.  An outfit that drew pretty much everybody's attention.  And Ray didn't give a fuck.

But no matter how much she loved Ray, it also reminded her how pathetic and miserable she was compared to her best friend.  Too short, a wardrobe that looked like it came from an all-girl catholic school, straight dark brown hair, dull brown eyes, glasses…  No attitude whatsoever.  Except when… no.  She willed the memories away, swallowing them and  the bitter taste of guilt they always brought.

"Carrie, listen to me."  Ray's look softened, a hand reaching out to the smaller girl's shoulder and Carrie was grateful for the comforting touch.  "What happened back home… - "  The smaller girl's eyes fixed the ground again.  She heard Ray sigh and held back her tears.  Ray must've been disappointed in her.  "Look Carrie what happened wasn't your fault, okay?  Sometimes people… people get confused and can't always control what they do, me included.  It happened, it happened.  We can't change that, so we have to live with it.  But we can't dwell on it forever."

"I know…" Carrie whispered, barely audibly. Silent tears made their way down her cheeks. "B-but y-you can't understand completely R-Ray…  Y-you're not the o-one who…"  Carrie couldn't finish as another wave of fresh tears came forth, and she sat down under a tree, hugging her knees to her chest.  She was shaking like a leaf and Ray could hear small sobs and hiccups that she didn't manage to keep in.

The sobs and hiccups turned to small sniffling when Carrie felt an arm draped across her shoulders, fingers softly caressing her hair and tucking some strands behind her ear.  Ray rested her cheek on top of Carrie's head.  Silent stretched on, only broken by the soft and fading sobs coming from the brunette.  When Ray could hear no more sniffles, still absent-mindedly playing with Carrie's hair, she spoke quietly: "I know it's hard… and I know it won't go away.  Never completely…"  A small smile brightened her face. "But I know…  it gets better."

Carrie lifted her head and Ray wiped the remains of tears from her eyes.  "It'll get better." She assured. "That's why we're here."  Her eyes still unfocused, lost somewhere in the past, Carrie nodded.  

"So," Ray started, while standing up and surveying the house, "what do you say we bust down that door and go introduce ourselves?"

Carrie smiled.  "Are they even there?" 

Ray narrowed her eyes at the house.  "Yep, they're all there alright.  What the Hell's taking them so long?  Can't they just answer the damn door?"

"What are they doing?"

"Dunno.  Looks like they're running around in a frenzy."

Both girl stared at each other and shrugged.  Taking back her precious package and 'gift' under her arm, Ray walked up to the door and knocked again, a little louder this time.

***

*KNOCK KNOCK*

'Oh, shit!'  Lance thought as he looked worriedly at the door.  'Dammit.  No choice now, gotta get out there and stall them.'  Luckily, Pietro was almost done with the den and the kitchen.  Although they weren't spotless, they were at least presentable.  "Here goes nothing." Lance whispered resting his hand on the doorknob.

"Good luck."

Lance took one last look behind and managed a smile at the silver haired speedster.  Pietro just looked on, a cool and collected mask on his face.  But Avalanche could tell by looking into his eyes that Quicksilver felt anything but calm at the moment. Feeling uncomfortable under the other's stare, Pietro gave Lance a small smile and zipped back to the kitchen. Alone once again, Lance opened the door.

***


End file.
